About us.
What do we do?
We work with the people to make actionable demands of public and private institutions and meet the needs of our city’s most vulnerable people. We are creating a generative system of accountability in Somerville—one that champions community care and nurturing over carceral logic.
Who are we?
We are a BIPOC-led collective of Somerville residents working toward an abolitionist future. We are not a reformist movement. We not only believe another world is possible, one without police and prisons—we are actively committed to building it.
How do we do it?
We want to unite Somerville around its best values, reaching out neighbor-to-neighbor, and creating the local organizing infrastructure necessary to institute change. Our work spans policy and budgetary advocacy, electoral politics, direct action, and grassroots organizing to build safe communities with alternatives to policing as we transition away from the carceral system.
Why do we do it?
We aim to shift public opinion around safety so that restorative and transformative justice are centered along with the needs of communities of color, the working class, and other marginalized people. We believe in a racially just, equitable future where community needs are met through solidarity, demands, and action, and people of color can thrive without fear of state-sanctioned violence and white supremacy.
Where did it start?
In 2020, Defund SPD formed in response to global uprisings against police brutality and white supremacist violence. Over just a few weeks, we brought together thousands of Somerville residents around the demands to defund the police and refund the people. We organized hours of public testimony to the Somerville City Council, made hundreds of calls and emails to our local representatives, and mobilized protests in front of the Mayor’s house.
Our work.
Understanding how we fit into the context of abolition is crucial to engagement with what we do.
The Problem
The police play a crucial role in the larger class war: they serve as defenders of property, the wealthy, and the state, rather than as protectors of the people. The working class, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ and disability communities have all disproportionately suffered at the hands of police and the carceral state.
The Struggle
In our fight for collective liberation, we stand with all marginalized communities who have suffered the police’s physical and financial predation. As abolitionists, our movement is born from the struggle for Black liberation and the political imagination of Black feminists and freedom fighters. We honor those who have come before us, as well as BIPOC abolitionist leaders currently fighting here in Somerville and around the world.
The Solution
We live our values of restorative and transformative justice to subvert the harms of punitive accountability and disposability culture. As a movement, we recognize the leadership of BIPOC Somerville residents organizing within Defund SPD. We have created an internal governing structure that requires a BIPOC majority to advance our movement strategy, so that those closest to the pain are closest to transformative power.
